Day 9 (15 June): Tito's Playground

Today we went to Lake Bled which is in the Slovenia Alps and did some hiking in the mountains as well. The Lake is one of the clearest I've ever seen, as you can actually spot the fish swimming around in it. In the middle is an island with a church on it.

Above the lake on a cliff is a castle, that is the first in Slovenia built in 1004. In the castle's museum is the original legal contract deeding the land, its interesting to realize how long ago there were contracts and legal documents. The museum also had a great overview of Slovenia's history and detailed how the country had been occupied by the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian at various points. Most recently, Lake Bled was where Tito spent his summers in a palace built for him; it is also where State visits to Yugoslavia were hosted.

At the lake, there were posters for an upcoming rowing regatta. It would be a great place to race, not only because its so scenic, but also because the lake is surrounded by mountains and therefore has no wind. Futhermore, it is exactly 2000m long.

We also went hiking through nearby Vintgar Gorge and did a bit of walking through a slight drizzle, but at least the weather in Slovenia is pleasant and warm, but not hot, unlike Prague and London which were both cold.

Economic observation of the day:
Labor is not mobile in small European countries like Slovenia. People in towns like Bled and Vintgar would consider me crazy for having lived in 5 major US cities (soon to be 6) over the last 3 years as such things clearly aren't done in countries like Slovenia. The people who live at Bled think Ljubjlana is too big a town and intimidating despite it only being about an hour away, they consider it pretty distant. Tradition and family keep people in one place.

Day 8 (14 June): Ljubljana, What a Name for a Town

I arrived in Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia, pronounced lube-lee-ana) last night and met my friend Hugh from high school who I will be traveling with for the next week or so. Since I'm sure almost no one has heard of the city or the country here are some quick facts:
-It borders Italy in the West, Austria in the North, Hungary in the East, and Croatia in the South
-It was part of the former Yugoslavia, fighting a short 10 day war with Serbia to gain independence as the Serbs had a much harder battle to fight with Croatia.
-It was the richest part of the former Yugoslavia and its economic engine if Yugoslavia had one.
-Its very small as the capitol has only about 120,000 people in it and the country as a whole is only has a population of 2,000,000 that's about half that of the city of Los Angeles.
-Its a very alpine country with only a sliver of coastline on the Adriatic Sea and has some of the best scenery of anywhere I've been:
-People there are very friendly and almost everyone we met was multi-lingual speaking Slovene, German, Italian, and English.

In the morning, Hugh and I visited Ljubljana's castle, old town, and churches. The city sits in a valley where three rivers converge and there is a hill above town with the castle on it. In the afternoon we took a hike to a church in the Tivoli park which overlooks the city from the other side of the valley. The whole city is very picturesque and has a very good feel to it.

During the day, we spotted a number of posters for the Ljubljana Triathlon which was to take place the next day. I looked into renting a bike and entering, only to find out the it was limited to 20 pros only, despite its absurdly short 500m swim, 5000m bike, and 1500m run. It would have been really fun to do a triathlon in another country, especially since it wasn't planned to be there for it.

That evening on the way back to the Hostel we stayed in (which was former prison and had rooms with the original cell bars making it quite interesting, yet surprisingly nice) we explored the neighborhood nearby: Metelkova. Hugh ended up arm-wrestling a Slovenia guy to get us into a bar right near the Hostel. There we met an American expat who had been living in Slovenia for 15 years (since he married a Slovenian woman) who showed us to other locals night spots and provided some interesting insight into the country as well as stories about being there during their 10 day war, etc. In many ways at this point, he was probably more Slovenian than American and had even picked up a Slovenia accent when he spoke English.


Economic observations of the day:

1) Ljubljana has more bicycles per capita than anywhere I've been outside of Asia, despite being wealthy for its part of the world so people can afford cars. There are just a lot of bike lanes and riding bikes seems to be part of the culture.

2) Its possible to eat fatty food and not be fat. We ate a Slovenian 'Country Feast' the evening before when we arrived that consisted of 4 different kinds meat (one type of sausage, a blood sausage, a cured pork piece, and a mystery meat) along with bread dumplings and 'groats' which to the best of my knowledge is grease-soaked buckwheat flour with spices. Despite this type of food and large portions everywhere people in Slovenia all look very skinny and healthy. Maybe its all the biking and walking they do.

3) European Economic Community countries are still reluctant to accept the Euro. In Slovenia, no one wants anything to do with the Euro and ATMs do not dispense them, but only Slovenia Tolars. Slovenia, however, was reluctant to join the EU as it knew it would become a net contributor.

Days 5-7 (11 June-13 June): The most expensive city on earth

I arrived in London Friday evening where I stayed with one of my best friends from high school, Fabian. He lives in South Kensington and works in the City (London's version of Wall Street.) My roommate from San Diego, Jaime, also came into town for the weekend. His biotech company in San Diego was bought by a British one that moved the entire staff to Bedford, England which is over an hour on the train from London where he's been living for the past 3 weeks.

In essence, we got the Fabian view of London (outside of the 18 odd hours he spends a day in his office,) since this was his first weekend off work in 10 weeks. Fabian's London involves a lot of partying in Las Vegas like clubs only they are much more international, more exclusive, and more expensive (with 40 USD cover charges and drinks with unheard of prices too.) One of the most surprising things about going out in London was that I didn't meet a single Brit, everyone seemed to be Russian, from a former Soviet State, Scandinavian, Italian, or German. We went to places called Pangea and Tantra in addition to a party at one of his friends flats.

We also spent a good bit of time seeing some other sights and enjoying good weather for London (only partly cloudy and a balmy 65 degree Fahrenheit.) On Saturday, we met up with another American expat who works in the City and played Frisbee in Kensington Gardens (near one of the Royal Palaces,) walked up millionaires' Mile, and then topped off the afternoon at a Beer Garden with a pitcher of Pimms (a British summer drink that has cucumbers floating in it among other things, making it almost like Gazpacho meets Lemonade, which is surprisingly refreshing.) On Sunday we explored Compton Town which is the center of British counter culture and a little further outside of the city. Both days we ran into 'birds' we'd met the night before on the Tube which makes me think that despite its size London's rather small.


Economic observations from the weekend:

1) Every city has its late night food. In London nights out end when the sun is rising at kebob places (rather than Pizza places like in NY, Boston, or DC or Burrito places like in California.)

2) Burritos can't be exported for some reason and Indians can't pass themselves off as Mexicans. In Compton town, we found a 'Burrito Stand' staffed by Indians pretending they spoke Spanish (but they did worse than me) and serving 'Mexican Wraps' (e.g. Burritos.) We tried it out of curiosity and ended up with some stuff that tasted like Chinese food stuffed in a tortilla. Can anyone explain why Mexican Food doesn't travel well? It shouldn't be that hard with a good recipe and the right ingredients.

3) Starbucks appeals to everyone. In the center of what might be the counter culture world, we saw a girl dressed in Goth Clothing, drinking a Latte from Starbucks. Its surprising how over-priced coffee from the place is so successful with all elements of society, all over the world.

4) De-criminalized and legal drugs don't seem to have much of a negative impact on society in London. In Compton Town, 'Magic Mushrooms' were for sale everywhere and people openly smoke marijuana with no threat of being arrested, yet the place isn't full of junkies (although it is a bit strange.)

Day 4 (10 June): Leaving the East to 'Go West'

I had a couple hours in Prague this morning before getting on a flight back to London for the weekend. I spent the morning at the hostel, organizing further bits of travel in Europe and exploring the neighborhood near the hostel some more. (I also ran into one of the other kids staying at the hostel who had gone to the Czech club with us the night before and listened to him tell a story about how a Czech girl bit him while they were dancing until he bled and then she licked it off: very strange and aggressive!)

I went to a different street market that was larger. What was most interesting about it was that all of the merchants were of Chinese decent and selling the same type of t-shirts, shoes, bootleg music/DVD's you can find them selling almost anywhere in the world. Two things impress me about this: 1) its incredible how much the Chinese get around and how cheaply they can seem to sell things for almost anywhere; 2) you can buy a NY Yankees hat in any color, anywhere in the world; the same should be true for Red Sox hats!

My plane ride was rather eventful as I had a 2+ hour conversation with a guy next to me. He had just finished his fourth of five years at a University in Prague and was going to the UK to work for the summer. What made the conversation really neat was 1) the guy was originally from Eastern Slovakia (which is the poorer part of the former Czech Republic and now its own country) and the only other countries he had been to were Bulgaria and the Czech Republic with the biggest city being Prague, and 2) that he had never been on a plane before. We had a long discussion about how all of the recent University graduates in Eastern Europe want to leave for jobs and maybe never go back. He also explained that very few of them had a desire to go to the US.

Economics observation of the day: there is a real business opportunity in fixing/improving the ATM networks in the Czech Republic. When I arrived I took out 2000 Czech Krona (approach. 80 USD) and received only one bill. It was nearly impossible to break the bill considering a pint of beer in the Czech Republic cost only 12Kc. The machines should recession the need for smaller bill/coins and dispense a portion of the amount in these. If you do take out a more odd amount, say 2100Kc, then you will get a 2000 bill and a 100 bill, so perhaps, the locals understand that they should always take out an odd amount of money, so they don't run into difficultly breaking larger bills.

I'll write more about arriving in London and the activities there in my next post...